VIRTUAL PROGRAM keynote: Education that matters in an era of uncertainty: A critical practice for changing times
| Tuesday, July 8, 2025 |
| 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM |
| Virtual platform |
Overview
Associate Professor Karen Gravett, University of Surrey, UK
Details
In this keynote presentation, I will share my current research and practice examining concepts of belonging, mattering, care, and criticality in higher education. Concepts such as student belonging, mattering and care have risen to prominence in recent scholarship and practice. The increased prominence of these terms, together with the challenges afflicting the sector, mean that now is an important time to pause to reflect on the work these ideas do. There is a plentiful literature on the difficulties of academic life where institutions have been described as environments that are both uncaring and unhealthy. Educators are presently grappling with financial uncertainty, with increasing workloads, as well as with how artificial intelligence and digital technologies are reorientating assessment, engagement and teacher agency. Now is a critical time to develop pedagogies of mattering, and to consider the kinds of educational futures we wish to create. In this presentation I will draw upon ideas from theory, for example posthumanism, affect theory and sociomaterial studies, in order to think about educational practices in new ways. Inspired by Lauren Berlant’s attention to a ‘politics of the ordinary’ (Berlant 2022) that attunes to the granular moments of the everyday, I will focus in upon students’ and staff’ situated experiences of belonging, participation and connection in the contemporary university. I suggest that such fine-grained politically charged experiences speak back to simplistic conceptions of equality, diversity and inclusion within higher education, and that too often overused buzzwords permeate education discourses and constrain thinking. I examine ways in which we might make space for more complex conversations about student and staff experiences, and engage in a care-full critical practice in higher education. I suggest that thinking in new ways about teaching and learning enables us to ask different questions, and to notice our students, institutions and learning spaces anew.
Speaker
Assoc Prof Karen Gravett
University of Surrey, UK
Education that matters in an era of uncertainty: A critical practice for changing times
1:15 PM - 2:15 PMFinal abstract
In this keynote presentation, I will share my current research and practice examining concepts of belonging, mattering, care, and criticality in higher education. Concepts such as student belonging, mattering and care have risen to prominence in recent scholarship and practice. The increased prominence of these terms, together with the challenges afflicting the sector, mean that now is an important time to pause to reflect on the work these ideas do. There is a plentiful literature on the difficulties of academic life where institutions have been described as environments that are both uncaring and unhealthy. Educators are presently grappling with financial uncertainty, with increasing workloads, as well as with how artificial intelligence and digital technologies are reorientating assessment, engagement and teacher agency. Now is a critical time to develop pedagogies of mattering, and to consider the kinds of educational futures we wish to create. In this presentation I will draw upon ideas from theory, for example posthumanism, affect theory and sociomaterial studies, in order to think about educational practices in new ways. Inspired by Lauren Berlant’s attention to a ‘politics of the ordinary’ (Berlant 2022) that attunes to the granular moments of the everyday, I will focus in upon students’ and staff’ situated experiences of belonging, participation and connection in the contemporary university. I suggest that such fine-grained politically charged experiences speak back to simplistic conceptions of equality, diversity and inclusion within higher education, and that too often overused buzzwords permeate education discourses and constrain thinking. I examine ways in which we might make space for more complex conversations about student and staff experiences, and engage in a care-full critical practice in higher education. I suggest that thinking in new ways about teaching and learning enables us to ask different questions, and to notice our students, institutions and learning spaces anew.
Biography
Dr Karen Gravett is Associate Professor and Associate Head (Research) at the Surrey Institute of Education at the University of Surrey, UK, where her research focuses on the theory-practice of higher education, and explores the areas of student engagement, belonging, and relational pedagogies. She is Director of the Language, Literacies and Learning research group, a member of the SRHE Governing Council, a member of the editorial board for Teaching in Higher Education, and Learning, Media and Technology, and a member of the editorial team for Sociology. She is also a a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) and an Honorary Associate Professor for the Centre for Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University. Karen’s work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Society for Research in Higher Education, the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education, the British Association for Applied Linguistics, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Her latest books are: Gravett, K. (2025) Critical Practice in Higher Education, and Gravett, K. (2023) Relational Pedagogies: Connections and Mattering in Higher Education.
